


The Painting

by Staria82



Series: Daily Pic Imagines [5]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Mystery, No Romance, No Smut, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 15:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Staria82/pseuds/Staria82
Summary: Natasha and Clint investigate the disappearance of Hydra agents.





	The Painting

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series of quick and short fics based on images that my friend sends me. They are meant to be quick daily writing practice so a lot of them are just snippets of whatever I associate with the image.

 

“I swear to God, that thing is possessed,” said Clint Barton while taking a closer look at the weird painting, “Look at it, Nat. I swear it just winked at me.”

“No one is winking at you, Clint, not with the way your face looks right now,” said Natasha, somewhat absent-minded while inspecting a small pool of blood, “Just come over here and help me take some samples.”

Clint looked at the strange portrait, waiting for another sign that somehow it was alive. He was not crazy, he had seen it blink. 

Nat was wrong anyway.

Even with his face covered in bruises he was still handsome, he thought smugly to himself. 

After about half a minute he gave up looking for hints of life and moved to help Natasha gather more samples. 

Their mission was simple: figure out how a team of Hydra agents had completely vanished leaving an empty house. None of the SHIELD agents watching the house saw them come or go. 

The only thing left behind were their belongings and splotches of blood that wouldn’t dry.

“So, remind me once more: why are we the ones investigating this? Strange wasn’t available? This seems more his thing,” asked Clint, as he placed a hair sample in a bag for later inspection, “You know, the spooky type.”

“Yeah, Strange is covering some other assignment. He was needed in some other realm. One of those with unpronounceable names. I would much rather stay here collecting bodily fluid samples,” said Natasha, rolling her eyes at Clint. 

“No complaints here, then. I would much rather stay in familiar grounds, like, planet Earth.”

Clint moved to the opposite corner of the living room looking for clues of any sort of confrontation. The walls had a few bloody splotches here and there but other than that, no signs of struggle or violence. 

“Clint, don’t move. I think you are right. That damn painting just moved,” whispered Natasha. 

Clint quickly turned only to find himself face to face with a tall black figure with long rope-like arms rapidly moving towards him. So, the painting really was alive. He tried to pull out an arrow but the thing was too fast.

“Aw, shit. A heads up next time would be nice,” said Clint, as he rolled out of the way to use the couch as cover. Natasha was already hiding there figuring out what to do next.

“Well, I did tell you not to move,” said Natasha, pulling out her gun, “I don’t know what this thing is but we have to move.”

They observed the creature as it stumbled from side to side, like it wasn’t sure where it was. Maybe it wasn’t even sure what it was.

Clint shot an arrow at the thing but it went right through as if made of mist. The creature screeched in pain nevertheless, giving Natasha time to make it to the kitchen and find cover. 

Now for sure the thing was aware of Clint. It struck the couch out of the way leaving Clint without a cover. It shrieked once more before moving towards him. Natasha shot electric darts at the creature from the kitchen but it didn’t seem to have any kind of effect. 

Once in the kitchen, their plan to leave the house failed. The kitchen door was locked and even though Nat tried to kick the door open it was pointless since there was a force shield behind it.

“One other option. Basement,” Natasha said, as they sprinted down the stairs. They waited for the creature to show up but after a few minutes it seemed like it had no interest in following them.

“The hell was that thing?” asked Clint, “I’m no genius, but I guess it has something to do with the missing people.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I figured as well.”

“We need backup. Do we know any other mystics besides Strange?”

“I would call Wanda, but our communication devices are not working.”

“In that case, do you think doing the whole burn-the-portrait-to-kill-the-demon thing might work?”

“Maybe?” she said, looking pensive, “We could try.”

\---

Clint and Natasha spend a few minutes coming up with a plan in which they were less likely to be killed by the painting creature. They just needed to get close enough to the painting to set it on fire and hopefully kill the creature.

Once they reached the top of the basement stairs they peeked out the door but all they found was an empty kitchen. They checked the kitchen door once more but it was still blocked by the magic shield. Once they reached the living room they could see the creature bent over something.

“I think we found the bodies, or at least one of them,” whispered Natasha, making a face. The thing was slowly ripping apart a dead body and eating the human shreds.

“I’m never eating pot roast ever again,” said Clint, pulling a similar face.

“I distract him. You set the portrait on fire,” said Natasha, before sprinting out of the kitchen and right past the creature. She really needed to work on giving warnings before running out like a mad woman, Clint thought to himself.

Resigned, Clint shot a few explosive arrows making the painting burst on fire. The creature shrieked loudly one final time before bursting into flames as well. From its melting noncorporeal body, corpses began to fall out as they caught on fire as well and pretty soon the whole place was in flames. 

\---

Natasha and Clint made it out in time before the house was quickly engulfed in flames. They still had the blood samples they had collected which hopefully Tony or Strange analize. 

They stood outside watching the fire, making sure nothing escaped, until they heard the sirens of approaching fire trucks. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my first action fic, I really enjoyed writing it and might have more in the future.


End file.
